What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! Kelly Clarkson shared the advice she gives her two children about growing up with divorced parents: be each other’s best friend.
“I tell my kids this all the time,” Clarkson, 40, told guest Mila Kunis during the Thursday, October 6, episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show. “You’re each other’s buddies.”
Clarkson and ex-husband Brandon Blackstock, who were married for nearly seven years before the “Moment Like This” singer filed for divorce in June 2020, share daughter River, 8, and son Remington, 6. Blackstock also has two children from a previous relationship: Savannah, 20, and Seth, 15.
“Especially cause we went through divorce, right? So they go to their dad’s and mine. So anytime you travel, you’ve always got each other,” the Voice judge explained to Kunis, 39, noting that siblings should be friends even when they disagree.
“So I always try and make them like buddies when they fight,” she continued. “I’m like ‘No, no, no. This is your wingman. You’re supposed to stick up for each other. ‘Don’t tattle tale all the time.'”
While Clarkson revealed that she and Blackstock, 45, were remaining private about their split to “protect our children and their little hearts” during a September 2020 episode of her talk show, the American Idol winner told Variety last month that she’s channeled her emotions around the breakup into her new music.
“The whole divorce thing happened and I needed to write it,” Clarkson said of her next studio recording. “And then I didn’t know if I was going to release it, because you can be very angry in that state of mind. So, some of the songs, they definitely cover the gamut of emotions; there’s everything on the album. It’s almost like the arc of a relationship, because the beginning is so beautiful and so sweet, and then it evolves. And sometimes it doesn’t evolve how you want.”
The “Miss Independent” singer revealed that when the pair first called it quits, “there were many emotions” that she wasn’t able to talk about “until I’ve gone through it” – leading her to only release “happy” Christmas music the past two years.
The Texas native’s divorce proceedings were finalized earlier this year after almost two contentious years in court. Clarkson was granted primary custody of her two little ones and she decided that she wouldn’t “hide everything” from them, even when it was hard.
“Obviously, don’t talk about stuff that you shouldn’t talk about, but it’s OK if they see you cry, or it’s OK if they see you’ve had a bad day,” she explained to Variety. “You start to feel that kind of shame, like, ‘I’ve got to put my best foot forward as a mom because I don’t want them to be affected.’ But then you allow your kids to express empathy, and they learn how to say, ‘Oh, man, I’m sorry you had a hard day.’”
Amid their divorce, Clarkson and Blackstock had been in a lengthy legal battle over their shared Montana property. Us Weekly confirmed earlier this year that the music manager has since left his ex-wife’s property after sources told Us that he was “ultimately talked out of it” and is “a constant thorn in her side.”
In addition to their property disagreements, Clarkson asked the court to enforce their prenuptial agreement and block spousal support. However, according to documents obtained by Us in March 2022, the “Since You’ve Been Gone” songstress was ordered to pay her ex-husband spousal support of $115,000 monthly until January 2024. She was also asked to pay a one-time, tax-free fee of $1,326,161.
